<p>One of the great things about the Kindle Kate bought me for Christmas is that I can download vast slabs of ex-copyright novels for peanuts money.</p>
<p>The first slab I bought was the complete works of Henry James. I've read a couple of his books before--the Turn of the Screw and What Maisie Knew--and was impressed. Though it's probably fair to say I was struck most of all by the man's stellar critical reputation, and wanted to see more of what the fuss was about.</p>
<p>Well. I'm afraid I just can't see it in this case. If I was forced to choose just one adjective for this book, it would be 'unsuccessful'. It just doesn't achieve what James says he set out to do.</p>
<p>Briefly, without too many spoilers: the 'lady' of the title is a classic Henry James American in Europe, with what we're told is an exquisite and unique character (at the drop of a hat, people fall madly, pining-for-years-and-crossing-oceans in love with her); she comes into one piece of huge good fortune, and then through others' machinations and her own flaws one still greater misfortune; and this tale is then played out.</p>
<p>What's wrong with it? Principally, the gravest one for any attempt at a realist portrait: it's not lifelike. I've already mentioned her implausible desirability. The problem isn't just that I can't believe her suitors would go to such lengths for the sake of making their proposals; it's that I can't imagine them doing it for *her*. She's just not interesting enough.
She's proud, self-absorbed, humourless and rather insipid. She manages the role of society debutante faultlessly, and obsesses about her performance as a woman of society to such a degree that I half-believe the fault is mine for not sharing the prejudices and tastes of James's era. But then I remember that James made his name with stories setting brash honest American customs against exquisite but stultifying European ways, and I realise that this character I'm meant to be rooting for is just rather dull and conventional and with something of a martyr complex.</p>
The main twist in the plot is obvious to the reader about a third of the way through but takes the protagonist the entire novel to work out. Given how central this fact is to her fate, it's astonishing that she's never suspected it; so astonishing, in fact, that you're almost forced to conclude she's just a bit stupid and incurious about human nature. Now, if James was trying to present that sort of character, this could be interesting, but he's not: he keeps telling us that she's an exquisite and brilliant personality. Creative writing classes always advise students to show, don't tell, and it seems to me that James has failed at this basic test: he's unable to show us the character he wants to write, so he's telling us what she'd be like if he had managed to pull it off.
There's some lovely passages here: a beautiful description of the end of a long summer evening in Mayfair, a nice astringent ending and some lively passages around the secondary characters. But really, the least interesting person in the book is the protagonist. To me that suggests James wrote the wrong book.</p>
